The sale of newspapers through vending machines is common practice throughout the country. Most newspaper vending machines are coin actuated and responsive to the insertion of the proper coinage to permit the purchaser to open the door to the vending machine and thereby have access to all of the papers in the machine. This places the newspaper vendor at the mercy of the purchaser and relies on the honesty of the purchaser to protect the vendor's investment. This has proven unsatisfactory in some cases.
Prior attempts have been made to produce a vending machine to dispense only a single copy of newspaper in response to the deposit of appropriate coinage. The limited use of machines to vend single copies of newspapers is stark evidence that the single copy machines have not been developed to a commercially acceptable standard. Pending application Ser. No. 162,938 filed June 25, 1980 now U.S. Pat. No. 4,312,461 by Fred O. Godley and entitled NEWSPAPER VENDING MACHINE is the closest approach to a commerically acceptable single paper vending machine known to applicants.